Ridley Scott's Alien (1979)

To be fair, "Aliens" doesn't really try to be suspenseful. Even the "tension" of what happened on LV-426 isn't suspenseful because we know what happened - it takes no higher-level cognition to know the aliens have laid waste to the complex.

"Aliens" is all about the action. There's some tension involved at times but it doesn't attempt to follow the same horror structure of "Alien" at all.

Which I always thought was a good thing. It's great that Cameron made a movie that stood on its own and wasn't just a remade of the original...

 

I'm not sure that's correct - I don't believe there's any mention of them in the original theatrical cut of Aliens.

I always thought the sentry guns sequence was lame in the 'Special Edition' because it splices in a few rehashed shots of exploding aliens from the first skirmish under the Atmosphere Processing station. Easily noticeable on a repeat viewing.

It seems as though the theatrical cut made all the right choices, excising a large amount of footage that was either foreshadowing for (presumably) a lazy audience (i.e. Hudson's discussion of ant hives and a 'Queen', Ripley's dead daughter), or completely unnecessary callbacks to Alien (i.e. the Colony sequence). Knowing that these cuts were due to feature length time constraints, rather than Cameron realising their redundancy outright, is also illuminating - and, for me, signposts his weaknesses as a filmmaker that would become apparent in later films.

Indeed. There's certainly moments of tension and suspense, but Aliens is more the roller-coaster ride at the County fair - whereas Alien is the Haunted House.

Which makes Alien 3 overpriced Cotton candy and Alien: Resurrection the 'Knock over the milk bottle pyramid!' rigged carny trick.

 

Great points, guys

 

Did anyone see a comic book adaption of Alien published around the same time (perhaps a few months later)? I read it in WH Smiths one Saturday morning. I remember it had a scene which I think was cut from the theatrical release of the movie, where one of the crew is discovered gooed up in the ceiling awaiting incubation, when Ripley makes her way back to the life pod (I think). Perhaps the captain? Cameron replayed that scene in Aliens, IIRC?

 

Yes, the comic adaptation was titled Alien: The Illustrated Story and published in 1979. It was reprinted in 2012 (in colour), with a lovely "oversized" (13 × 17) hardback edition also released titled The Original Art Edition which was directly scanned from the artist's original art boards (in black and white). This larger edition is a wonderful release, now commanding high sums on the secondary market. Here's a nice overview with size comparisons:

Alien – The Illustrated Story: Original Art Edition

 

This seems as good a place to post this as any. Over the weekend I stumbled across a tutorial for manually turning 2D images into anaglyphic 3D images. You need a pair of the red-blue glasses to see the effect, but check this out. Download and zoom in to the details for full effect.

I was obsessed with 3D when I was in my early teens and would draw anaglyphic pictures with the red and green separations to get that effect. Took hours sometimes, lots of trial and error, but this brings me right back to that time. This still takes a long time to do properly, and while this image still needs some fine tuning, I'm pleasantly surprised by how much subtle depth I'm able to render with this technique.

 

4K UHD release early April according to thedigitalbits.
I have only watched the blu-ray once since I bought it years ago so I don't think I'll upgrade any time soon.
But I'm curious about how it's going to look and sound

 

One of the greatest films ever.

 

And UHD BD will only feature the Theatrical Cut only, the included BD will habe both the Theatrical and Extended Cut which means that the BD will most likely be the current 2010 BD.

 

Agreed.

 

I last watched it during the 2017 Halloween Movie Challenge, and made a post about it at that time. I still feel that fans of 'Alien' should seek out 'It! The Terror from Outer Space,' which, while not quite on the same level, was clearly a major influence.

 

Did you mean "It! The Terror From Beyond Space"?

 

Indeed I did, thanks. I seem to have mixed the title up with 'It Came from Outer Space.'

Spoiler

 

Yes, there was that scene with Dallas in the cocoon when Ripley finds him en route to the pod. That scene took down the fast pace of the ending I can see why they removed it from the theatrical cut. That scene was, to a degree, revived in Aliens, when they discover the colony members still alive in the atmospheric processor and one of them wakes up.

 

No upgrade for me. The picture is already great on the blu-ray and the audio doesn't get an Atmos or X boost.



Alien 40th Anniversary 4K Blu-ray

 

Does anyone believe it's from a new 4K scan? What could be wrong with the one they did 10 years ago?

 

Very cool boxart!

 

I remember the atmosphere in the theater opening week 1979. Afterwards, you knew it was something new, and we were in a new cinematic era.

 

Yeah, I vividly remember seeing it in a large, packed theater opening weekend. The entire audience went nuts during the chestburster sequence and it seemed like a full minute before everyone calmed down afterwords.

 

Can you imagine being Ridley Scott and Terry Rawlings and cutting that scene together, looking at it, and getting a sense of what you had created? Nothing could have prepared them for what the audience reaction was, of course, but they must have known they'd done something.

 

For the 2010 BD Alien was scanned to 4K but the restoration job was done at 2K, Fox didn't want to be cheap with such a great movie and start from scratch doing a new 4K scan and a brand new restoration at its native resolution.
I think the 2010 BD and the 2019 UHD BD may look very different not only because of the difference of resolution and the use of HDR (I think it's HDR10+ actually) but because each release was restored by different reastoration houses. The 2010 BD was restored by Lowry Digital (I think Lowry no longer exists or it was sold to another company and operates under a different name) with their propietary process that earned them an Oscar and the new release has been restored by Company 3/Deluxe Entertainment Services Group. Anyway, I guess restoring tools must be better now that the ones available 10 years ago.

 

Alright. That could make a difference for sure.

 

It must have been incredible to have seen that sequence on a big screen in a packed movie theater!! I first saw it on a VHS video on what must have probably been a 20 inch CRT, and it was still shocking to see...

 

No matter how many times I see Alien, it feels like the first time.

 

Back in those days Time magazine was a huge force in the movie industry anything that Richard Schickle would proclaim fantastic I would immediately run out to see. They would do whole stories on movies.